Following one of their exciting returns to the franchise, Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo are now set to lead a Tony & Ziva-focused NCIS spinoff show. The duo previously starred in the mainline crime procedural as the iconic agents who went from humorously bantering with one another to falling in love with each other. Ziva, who joined the main cast in season 3, departed the show in season 11, presumably killed off-screen, though was revealed to be alive in season 16 and heads off to Paris to reunite with Tony in season 17.
Paramount+ has announced that a new NCIS spinoff show is officially in the works for the streaming platform. Though currently without a title, the project will find Tony and Ziva living peacefully in Paris and raising their daughter, Tali, together, only for the family to have to go on the run when Tony’s security company is attacked. The show is being executive produced by Weatherly, de Pablo, Laurie Lieser, John McNamara, Christina Straina and Shelley Meals, with McNamara also serving as showrunner. Weatherly and de Pablo wrote about the show’s development in the following joint statement:
We’ve been talking about this story for many years, and now with John McNamara at the helm, we are ready. The world of Tony and Ziva (and daughter Tali) promises to be an action-packed roller coaster fueled by love, danger, tears and laughter. We also want to acknowledge and thank the fans from around the world who supported the ‘TIVA’ movement for years. To this day, they say hello in grocery stores and on the street to tell us how much these characters mean to them and ask what Tony and Ziva are up to now. This is for you!
NCIS Has Found The Right Spinoff Model For The Franchise
The development of the untitled Tony and Ziva project comes fresh off the heels of Weatherly’s NCIS return for season 21’s tribute episode to the late David McCallum, with Tony appearing at Ducky’s funeral in order to comfort his good friend, Dr. Jimmy Palmer. Now, the NCIS franchise will have its sixth spinoff under its belt since it was itself spun off from the long-running military legal drama JAG. Interestingly, however, the announcement of the new show comes just over a month after the second new spinoff project, NCIS: Origins, was revealed to be in the works.
That aforementioned show will see Mark Harmon returning as Jethro Gibbs and explore his early days with the eponymous agency, though no actor has been set for a younger version of his character. Between the Gibbs prequel and the Tony and Ziva spinoff, it appears the NCIS franchise has finally found the right direction to take with building out its universe by offering intimate expansions of the characters audiences fell in love with. Though Los Angeles, New Orleans and Hawai’i have featured fun crossovers and introduced compelling new characters, they largely stuck to the procedural format expected of the show.
While it could be argued the continue success of these shows has made it unnecessary for a change in formula, the opportunity for NCIS to expand into different storytelling territory could bring in new audiences to the franchise. Whether it be a shift in timeline per the Gibbs prequel, or a shift in tone and pacing with the action-packed description of Tony and Ziva’s spinoff, the new projects better allow for the minds that have kept the NCIS name alive this long to stretch new creative muscles and deliver both what longtime fans have wanted to see and create new ones at the same time.
